Matias
500+ Head-Fier
Elias, Scrith and Gordon, thank you for you answers. I already knew about ASIO4All, always thought it was made for onboard soundchips, didn't occur to me it'd work with Benchmark's driver. It worked indeed!
Well, after a couple of initial tests (1 hour or so) with several songs, I noticed ASIO4All sounded somehow differente from DirectSound, not sure if it was better or worse. But I am sure that BOTH sound worse than Juli@'s SPDIF. The latter just has more dynamics (transients), clearer mids and is overall more realistic.
I give up now. Even using an ASIO path (not native, btw) and bypassing kmixer, Benchmark's USB still sounds a little worse than a true native ASIO+SPDIF output. Is it perhaps the USB circuitry? Or the cheap USB cable that came with it?
PS: Did anyone else compare the DAC1's attenuator (variable output) agains a high-end DACT CT2 attenuator? I did. It was a massacre. The DACT is a LOT cleaner and detailed, wider soundstage. Of course it costs half the DAC1, but still.
Well, after a couple of initial tests (1 hour or so) with several songs, I noticed ASIO4All sounded somehow differente from DirectSound, not sure if it was better or worse. But I am sure that BOTH sound worse than Juli@'s SPDIF. The latter just has more dynamics (transients), clearer mids and is overall more realistic.
I give up now. Even using an ASIO path (not native, btw) and bypassing kmixer, Benchmark's USB still sounds a little worse than a true native ASIO+SPDIF output. Is it perhaps the USB circuitry? Or the cheap USB cable that came with it?
PS: Did anyone else compare the DAC1's attenuator (variable output) agains a high-end DACT CT2 attenuator? I did. It was a massacre. The DACT is a LOT cleaner and detailed, wider soundstage. Of course it costs half the DAC1, but still.